Back in 2003, Bob Marshall told American Farriers Journal, “What I constantly see with guys is a need to go over the basics. It’s the same every year. No one has even shown some of them how to hold a hammer.”

Fifteen years later, the Mission, British Columbia, farrier still sees the need to focus on the basics.

“I’m involved in the hunter-jumper world a little bit, and what I see is absolutely disgusting,” Marshall told attendees at the Indiana Farriers’ Association annual fall clinic in early November 2018 at Janssen Veterinary Clinic in Sheridan, Ind. “Low heels, long toes — and it’s accepted now. I’ve heard people say, ‘Oh, that’s the breed of them.’ That’s absolute garbage. It’s because we have gone past and we’re not doing the basics anymore.”

The trim is the foundation for keeping the horse sound.

“When you trim the foot appropriately, the whole leg moves — the whole horse changes,” says the member of the International Horseshoeing Hall Of Fame. “You’ve got to remember that you trim the foot for support. I believe that there are only two…